XII – Trial of the Valeyard

There is some evil in all of us – even the Doctor. Transported aboard the Time Lords’ orbiting courtroom, the Doctor once again encounters the Valeyard, an amalgamation of the darker sides of his nature. This time, however, the Doctor isn’t in the dock. This time, the Valeyard is the defendant, accused of a crime so terrible that the presiding Inquisitor is forbidden to reveal it even to the court, nor even to his counsel for the defence… the Doctor.

If the Valeyard is found guilty, he’ll be executed. Execute the Valeyard, and the secret of his origins dies with him. A secret that the Doctor is desperate to know… and which the Time Lords will stop at nothing to protect.

1 Comment

Styre
on May 9, 2016 at 10:28 PM

TRIAL OF THE VALEYARD

The annual subscriber releases from Big Finish have largely been fan-oriented: we’ve had “The Four Doctors,” “The Five Companions,” and three different stories starting with the word “Return.” This doesn’t change with the 2013 release, Alan Barnes’ and Mike Maddox’s “Trial of the Valeyard,” a direct sequel to the courtroom scenes of “The Trial of a Time Lord.” Sadly, while the other trend with the subscriber releases is that they’ve all been tolerable at the very least, “Trial of the Valeyard” breaks that trend with an incomprehensible mess of clumsy narrative and continuity references.

There is really no point at which “Trial of the Valeyard” entertains, and the disappointment starts with the very first scene, in which the Doctor lands aboard the space station from “Trial of a Time Lord” and refuses to exit the TARDIS, spending several interminable minutes yelling at empty air about how he doesn’t want to get involved in the plot. Way to sell your story, guys! Following this, the Doctor finally decides to enter the trial room, and, once there, engages in an interminable argument with the Inquisitor (Lynda Bellingham) about the reasons for his summoning. Finally, the defendant is brought in, and – shock, horror! – it’s the Valeyard! You know, like the title said. I wouldn’t complain so much about this if it didn’t take over 10% of the running time to learn what I already knew before I downloaded the story.

Really, that’s the problem with “Trial of the Valeyard:” the structure is absolutely appalling. “The Trial of a Time Lord” is frequently criticized for its trial scenes, which go around in circles, repeating the same arguments for 12 episodes until they finally get interesting near the end. In this story, there are a few interesting ideas surrounding the Valeyard and his origins, but each one takes long minutes of pointless courtroom drama to draw out. I complained about this at length in my reviews of the first three “Gallifrey” series, but I’ll say it again here: arguments about Gallifreyan law are not interesting, because it’s a fictional society whose rules haven’t been established in the past. Of course, all fiction is made up as it goes, but here it sounds like it, and that’s a dreadful mistake. The actors convince, largely due to their talent, but at no point is it at all believable.

I won’t get too far into the details, but suffice it to say that the story and promotional materials claim to reveal the true nature of the Valeyard and, of course, nothing of the sort happens. There’s an interesting story told about his origins and how children of uncertain parentage are treated on Gallifrey, and a further interesting suggestion about the end of the Doctor’s life, but all of this is completely undone by the conclusion. It’s all a con, the entirety of the story an elaborate deception designed to get the Doctor to open a box with a bomb in it and blow himself up. And when the Doctor figures it out and isn’t killed, the Valeyard appears in true Scooby Doo fashion to deliver a “Curse you meddling kids!” speech and vanish until their next encounter.

Ultimately, I don’t see the point of this. It’s 45 minutes of arguing and 15 minutes on an otherwise-deserted planet with a thoroughly annoying “crazy” character. Everything interesting it suggests is thrown into question in the most ham-fisted, obvious ways. The production is fine for what it is, but this is the first time Barnaby Edwards has directed something so uninteresting – it’s impossible for his usual kinetic style to come to grips with a script this flat. If you’re interested in continuity points, I suppose this is worth checking out. If you’re interested in good storytelling, don’t bother.